Urban Farm

If you're visiting Newcastle and cross the Ouseburn (a tributory ot the River Tyne) using this little humpback bridge and then walk under Byker Bridge, you reach ....

.. Ouseburn Farm, which is the subject of today's Guardian Country Diary.

Behind these beautifully designed steel entrance gates lies...

.. a neat little greenhouse made from discarded plastic drinks bottles, a polythene tunnel, raised beds for vegetable growing and on the left here, a fine environmental education centre.

This is a view of the farm from across the Ouseburn, which is in the foreground. These days the water level in the Ouseburn is controlled by a lock gate at its confluence with the Tyne but on the day that this photo was taken the lock was open to let snow meltwater flow into the river at low tide. There are some more photos of the Ouseburn and its wildlife here. The buildings in the background are (on the left) Victorian warehouses that now house artists' studios and Seven Stories (the National Centre for Children's Books) and (on the right) The Cluny, an excellent pub and one of the most popular live music venues in Newcastle. From the mid 19th. century until the mid 1960s this was one of the most heavily industrialised parts of the city. The farm sits on the location of an old white lead works and a flax mill that, along with other industries, discharged into the Ouseburn. After decades of clean-up operations, it now hosts the occasional kingfisher and, on the day that this photo was taken, redshanks that had ventured inland from the coast. 

 

The environmental education centre is a favourite destination for school parties and caters in particular for those with learning difficulties and disabilities. The farm has a flock of sheep (that were away being tupped when we visited) and visiting animals like these alpaca.

Next to the pig pens are these two stone mountings for the beam engine that once powered the flax mill, where linen sails were woven for sailing ships on the Tyne, the remained standing on the lead works site. 

The visiting alpaca are a long way from their Andean peaks in Peru but seem at home under Byker Bridge and approach visitors with cautious curiosity....

... sporting fetching haircuts.....

... and very thick fur that's perfect insulation for the kind of bitterly cold weather we've been having lately.

All the farm animals, including chickens...

... goats...

... and these ginger Tamworth pigs are accustomed to frequent visitors and the farm has created an educational resource and agricultural oasis in what was once a site of intensive industry. While we watched a sparrowhawk came hunting over the farm and just a few yards further along the Ouseburn, in an overhanging bush weighed down by the snow, we found..

... the remains of this goldfinch nest, exquisitely woven from sheep wool that can only have come from the Ouseburn Farm flock..... another landmark in the environmental regeneration of the Ousburn.